Volume Ii Part 2 (1/2)
”I have not written for the last eight or ten days, but I am getting all right, and take long walks every day, looking at villas, of which there are scores, but scarcely a habitable one, at least as a permanent abode, to be found.
”There is not one word of news beyond the arming of the French fleet. I find that many Mazzinists here believe that Mazzini was really engaged in the late plot; but I can neither believe the plot nor that he was in it. I look upon it as a very clumsy police trick throughout.
”My wife makes no advance towards health,--a day back and a day forward is the history of her life; but everything shows me that to undertake a journey to Spezzia without feeling that I had a comfortable place for her when there, and that she could remain without another change back in winter, would be a fatal mistake.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Casa Capponi, _March_ 8,1864.
”The whole story of R N. F. (Robert Napoleon Flynn, his real name) is an unexaggerated fact, and I have only culled a very few of the traits known to me, and not given, as perhaps I ought, a rather droll scene I had with him myself at Spezzia. The man was originally a barrister, and actually appointed Chief-Justice of Tobago by Lord Normanby, and as such presented to the Queen at the Levee. The appointment was rescinded, however, and the fellow sent adrift.
”I have met a large number of these fellows of every nation, but never one with the same versatility as this, nor with the same hearty enjoyment of his own rascality. d.i.c.kens never read over a successful proof with one-half the zest Flynn has felt when sending off--as I have known him to do--a quizzing letter to a Police Prefect from whose clutches he had just escaped by crossing a frontier. He is, in fact, the grand _artiste_, and he feels it.
”I am glad you like 'O'Dowd': first of all, they are the sort of things I can do best. I have seen a great deal of life, and have a tolerably good memory for strange and out-of-the-way people, and I am sure such sketches are far more my 'speciality' than story-writing.
”I a.s.sure you your cheery notes do me more service than my sulph.-quinine, and I have so much of my old schoolboy blood in me that I do my tasks better with praise than after a caning.
”Your sketch of the French Legitimist amused me much. The insolence of these rascals is the fine thing about them, as t'other day I heard one of our own amongst them (the uncle of a peer, and a great name too) reply, when I found him playing billiards at the club and asked him how he was getting on: 'Badly, Lever, badly, or you wouldn't find me playing half-crown pool with three sn.o.bs that I'd not have condescended to know ten years ago.' And this _the three sn.o.bs_ had to listen to!
”I am far from sure Grant was not 'done' by Flynn. But t'other night Labouchere (Lord Taunton's nephew and heir, who is the L. of the story) met Grant here, and we all pressed G. to confess he had been 'walked into,' but he only grew red and confused, and as we had laughed so much at F.'s victims, he would not own to having been of the number.
”The Napoleon paper is very good, and perhaps not exaggerated. It is the best sketch of the campaign I ever read, and only wants a further allusion to the intentions of the 4th corps under Prince Napoleon to be a perfect history of the event.
”'Schleswig-Holstein' admirable. I am proud of my company and _au raison._”
_To Dr Burbidge._
”Casa Capponi, _Wednesday_, March 1864.
”I thank you sincerely for the trouble you have had about my proof: honestly, I only wanted a criticism, but I forgot you had not seen the last previous part. As to what is to _come_, you know, I am sorry to say it, just as much as I do.
”'Luttrell' No. 5, that is for next month, has been in part lost, and I am in a fearful hobble about it,--that is, I must re-write, without any recollection of where, what, or how.
”My poor wife has been seriously, very seriously, attacked. Last night Julia was obliged to stay up with her, and to-day, though easier, she is not materially better. I write in great haste, as I have only got up, and it is nigh one o'clock, and the post closes early.”
_To Mr John Blackwood._
”Casa Capponi, Florence, _March_ 18, 1864.
”B. L.'s criticism on T. B. amused me greatly. Did you never hear of the elder who waited on Chief-Justice Holt to say, 'The Lord hath sent me to thee to say that thou must stop that prosecution that is now going on against me,' and Holt replied, 'Thou art wrong, my friend; the Lord never sent thee on such an errand, for He well knoweth it is not I, but the Attorney-General, that can enter a _nolle prosequi._' But B[ulwer]
L[ytton]'s fine pedantry beats the Chief-Justice hollow, with this advantage that he is wrong besides. Nothing is more common than for Ministers to 'swap' patronage. It was done in my own case, and to my sorrow, for I refused a good thing from one and took a d------d bad one from another. _Au reste_, he is all right both as to O'D. and Maitland.
O'D. ought to be broader and wider. I have an idea that with a few ill.u.s.trations it would make a very readable sort of gossiping book. I am not quite clear how far reminiscences and bygones come in well in such a _melange_. After all, it is only a hash at best, and one must reckon on it that the meat has been cooked already. What do _you_ say? I have some Irish recollections of noticeable men like Bushe, Lord Guillamore, Plunkett, &c., too good to be lost, but perhaps only available as apropos to something pa.s.sing.